


The Enemy of My Enemy

by Dragontrill



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: I'm pretending Fitz is okay, Spoilers if you haven't watched the entire first season of Shield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Season One of Marvel Agents of Shield. </p><p>With Shield gutted and Hydra still on the loose, Coulson and team have to take huge risks and infiltrate Hydra strongholds for information, usually without backup.</p><p>This time, they get the kind of backup they weren't expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Enemy of My Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I just marathon watched the whole first season of Agents of Shield. So this happened. Keep in mind, I haven't seen any of Season Two and I'm pretending that Fitz is okay. 
> 
> Grant Ward, I've decided, is a douchebag.

“Five,” Coulson counted over the comm. “Four, three, two, one.”

At the word five, he moved, through the last copse of woods and towards the long length of electrified fence that stretched across a field in the middle of nowhere. He was still a few feet shy of it when the hum abruptly stopped. 

“Good work, Skye,” he said as he grabbed the fence and started to climb. 

“Not a problem,” Skye responded. “I’ll be right behind you guys. Once you get the gate open, I mean.”

“Don’t want to climb the fence?” Triplet teased over the line. 

“Not with my laptop I don’t. You know how busted this op will be if I dropped it?”

“Focus, people,” Coulson said. He rolled over the top of the fence and dropped to the ground on the other side. The facility was half hidden in more trees ahead, an innocuous looking building that after weeks of research they knew belonged to Hydra. One of Fitz’ tiny drones buzzed past him, scoping ahead for any threats. Coulson had every expectation that it was going to find them. This sort of operation should have involved dozens of agents, entire strike teams being called in. Instead, with Shield gutted and left nearly dead, there was only the few of them to finish this op. Before Hydra recovered from the blow they’d taken in DC at the same time and started to make use of the Centipede technology that Skye learned was still inside. 

That technology was important and needed to be destroyed, but the opportunity to strain through the base’s files and locate more Hydra bases was even more important. Shield was hurt, but so was Hydra. There might not be any better chance to cut off the last of their heads

That reality meant that the location of this base had taken too long to come up with by far. Ward surely knew about it, might know enough to blow the remains of Hydra wide open, but he hadn’t helped them. He wasn’t talking at all, not about anything they wanted to listen to. 

Coulson shoved the thought of that traitor out of his mind and moved forward. There were going to be Centipede soldiers in this base and his team was only human. They couldn’t afford any distractions if they were going to survive.

“I’m in,” Mae called. “Six guards. Centipede. All down.”

That was more Centipede soldiers than Coulson had hoped there’d be on the front door, each one of them a super soldier with a kill switch in their brain, controlled by an outside handler. “Are you alright?” he gasped. Even Mae couldn’t take on six Centipede soldiers by herself.

“I’m fine. They were all dead before I got here.”

“What?” Coulson actually stopped at that, standing in the dark with a hand up to the comm in his ear. “How?”

“No idea. Whatever came through here, it tore them apart. Want me to pull back?”

“This is Trip,” came from the comm before he could answer. “I’m at my door. Same thing. What the fuck, man? This doesn’t look good.”

“If someone’s killing Hydra for us, can we maybe just let them?” Fitz asked. 

“Yes,” Simmons agreed. “I mean, we’re only a dozen miles from a town with a very lovely little cafe Fitz and I visited once when we were on summer break from the Academy.”

“I remember that place,” Fitz said. “They had the most wonderful open faced cucumber sandwiches. You remember those, Simmons?” 

“Oh, do I ever! They were a lifesaver for my sanity! Exams had been so rough that year. I mean, I actually got a ninety-five in Applied Biological Investitures in Modern Genetic Algorithms. I was devastated.”

“Am I still going in?” Skye interrupted. “Do I have to go in if everyone’s dead? I mean, I’m perfectly happy staying right here. Honestly.”

“Everyone shut up,” Coulson told them. “Hold positions until I say otherwise.” 

They acknowledged him and Coulson ran forward, careful to keep his eyes open despite his hurry. 

The original plan had been to infiltrate the base from three directions, get to the central control where the handlers for the Centipede soldiers were and shut them down, then bring Skye and Fitzsimmons in to hunt for as much information on Hydra as they could get. Then they’d retreat and blow the building behind them. A direct fight was the last thing they could afford and the one thing they most wanted to avoid.

He hadn’t expected to have the way cleared for them. Coulson arrived at the front entrance to the base - he’d sent Mae there to see if there was any way in, but hadn’t expected there to be - to find a half dozen bodies scattered around and inside the shattered doors. She hadn’t exagerrated in her report. Men augmented to have both super strength and endurance had been torn apart.

“What did this?” he whispered. 

Mae gave him an impassive look. “No idea. Something worse than them.” Her eyes narrowed. “They’ve been dead less than an hour. What do you want us to do?”

Coulson shook his head. “We have to go in. We can’t let the information in this base go to waste.”

“And if whatever did this is still here?” she asked.

Coulson straightened up from where he’d knelt over one of the bodies and looked right at her. “Then we run,” he said.

###

He called in the entire team. With Ward holding out on giving them any information at all, this was the only lead they had. 

He and Mae took point, leading the way into the building while Trip followed with Skye and Fitzsimmons. Like all Hydra facilities, it looked like an ordinary building, with a hallway leading to offices and labs, all of them innocuous and useless to them. The real labs would be somewhere below, as would the handlers, behind a secret entrance.

They cleared every room, finding nothing except, once or twice, another Centipede body. Five minutes in, they found where they’d made their last stand, in an auditorium in the centre of the building, lit by an artful arrangement of skylights. It was full of blood, bodies scattered everywhere. From the look of it, the twenty or so soldiers there hadn’t done any better than the ones at the front of the building.

The entrance to the secret part of the lab was easy to find. The floor before the lecturer’s stand was torn up, a section of foot thick cement blown out. Below it, stairs led down. From the edge of the hole, all they could see was the floor of a small section of what looked to be corridor. 

“We go down there,” Mae pointed out, “And we could end up as the fish in the barrel.”

“We have no choice,” Coulson reminded her. Mae shrugged. She knew why they had to go down there as well as he did.

A minute later, Trip arrived with the others. “I don’t like this,” Simmons whined. She had her night-night gun clutched to her chest and was pressing against Fitz’ side. He pressed against her just as firmly.

“Me neither,” he said. “I mean, someone obviously got here ahead of us. I think they want this place more than we do. Why-why don’t we just let them have it?”

“We can’t,” Coulson said. “We’re all that’s left of Shield. It’s our duty to stop Hydra, no matter what the risk.” With that, he stepped down onto the stairs and went down them to the bottom, his weapon ready. 

The corridor at the bottom was innocuous, white and empty, lined by doors to labs along its length that were all open. Through at least one of them, he could see a pool of blood. The entire place smelled of death and blood. At the far end was the opening into what looked to be some sort of control centre, likely the one where they’d find the handlers. It was quiet, mausoleum-like for all its cleanliness, and Coulson’s neck crawled. Someone was watching them. Every instinct he had said it. 

He moved forward anyway and the others followed him. “We are Shield,” Simmons was chanting to herself. “We fight Hydra. We are Shield, we fight Hydra.” Her voice went up on the last word as she passed what used to be a lunchroom but was now an abattoir.

“Quiet,” Mae snapped. “You want someone to hear you?”

“Is there anyone who’s going to?” Skye asked. “I mean, look at this place. Everyone’s dead. Whoever, whatever did this. If they were still here, they’d have already attacked, wouldn’t they?”

“Or they’re waiting for us to get into the perfect spot for an ambush,” Mae replied.

“You’re always so cheerful,” Trip grinned.

They moved forward, into what was indeed the control room for the Centipede soldiers. Dozens of computers were arranged in rows. As in the rest of the building, the men and women who’d manned them were all dead, each of them from a single shot through the head, most of them while they’d tried to run. 

The computers, strangely, were all untouched.

“Do your magic, Skye,” Coulson called while he, Mae, and Trip set up a perimeter. 

“I hate this,” Skye muttered while she went to one of the less blood covered computers and hooked up her laptop. Fitz and Simmons went to see what information they could get on their specialities. This was a data centre, for the most part, but there were a few lab tables with prototypes on them. 

“You know,” Skye continued, “If we maybe punch Ward a few more times, he might give us the info we need on the remaining Hydra bases. Then we wouldn’t have to risk all our lives coming into places like this.” She connected and started to hack through the security. “I’m going to have nightmares for months.”

“Ward can’t keep silent forever. He’ll talk eventually.” Coulson kept looking around. The feeling of being watched wasn’t going away, but there was no one here. He was one of the best in the former Shield. Mae was even better. Even Trip was no slouch. If someone were hiding here and watching them, they’d find them. Whoever did this was gone, for whatever reason they’d come. All they’d done was kill every man and woman here and then left the data on the computers alone. 

Then again, whoever broke in here probably didn’t have a hacker of the quality Skye represented.

“I’m in!” she cheered. “Downloading the mainframe to external hard drive. I’ll sort and organize it once we’re back on the bus.”

“Good. Pack up and get ready to go.” He looked at Fitzsimmons. “What about you two?” They both cheerfully started to talk over each other and he raised a hand. “Don’t talk. Just grab it. We’re pulling out.”

The retreat was easy. Nothing happened on their trip out, not on the way out of the building and not across the field and through the woods to their SUV. Still, that feeling of being watched didn’t go away.

Seated in the front seat with him, Mae glanced over as she drove. “You feel it too?” she asked.

“Feel what?” he asked.

“That whatever destroyed that base let us go? That it was watching us the whole time?”

“The base wasn’t destroyed,” he pointed out. “We didn’t delay to set the charges. Which I suppose answers your question.”

“I suppose it does.”

Behind them, the building abruptly exploded, sending a fireball up into the sky almost as bright as day. Everyone in the back of the SUV started yelling while Coulson and Mae exchanged a look. Then she turned her eyes back to the road and put the accelerator to the floor.

###

“Wheels up in five!” Mae yelled as she climbed out of the SUV and left Trip to strap it down in its place on the Bus’ ramp. Fitzsimmons followed after her towards the lab, already arguing about what they’d found. Skye followed more slowly, glancing back towards Coulson. 

“Uh, I’ll tell you what I find,” she told him.

He nodded. “Good.”

She hesitated. “Um, back there. That. Who did that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Her brows lifted. “Don’t know or don’t want to tell me?”

“No more secrets, Skye,” he promised. “I don’t know. Hopefully something we’re not going to have to deal with.”

“Are we going to be that lucky?”

“Are we ever?” he asked. She grimaced and continued on her way.

“I’ll refuel the SUV,” Trip said. “Clean the weapons. Not that we got to use them.”

“Good man.” Coulson headed forward as the ramp closed and the Bus rumbled, beginning its vertical takeoff procedure.

Outside, a shadow ran for the plane, under the belly and towards one of the landing gears as it began to rise off the ground. It leaped up, catching the wheel it as it rose, and was pulled into the belly of the plane along with it.

Coulson went to his office for a time, to sit and think. They didn’t know enough and he hated that, but he didn’t have any regret for the people in that building, not really. He had no way of knowing who was there willingly or not, and by now, the point was moot anyway.

He sighed and went to the kitchen, where he heated up a microwave dinner and dumped it on a plate next to a plastic fork. Along with a bottle of water, he carried them to the top of the Bus, where the Cage was.

Ward sat in a cell bare of everything but a bed, toilet, and a sink, with a forcefield between him and the door. He looked up at Coulson bringing his dinner without expression.

“You’re late with that,” was all he said.

“We were busy,” Coulson told him as he slipped the tray and bottle through a gap under the bars. “Got a bunch of information from a Hydra base.”

Ward picked up the tray and grimaced at it. “Good for you. Microwave meatloaf again?”

“I can get you bread and water if you prefer,” Coulson told him. He stood up, his hands clasped before him. “Something interesting happened at the base we were just in,” he said. “Someone or something got there ahead of us. Killed everyone inside. Then blew the building.”

Ward looked up at him, curious despite himself. “I thought you said you got information out of it.”

Coulson smiled. “We did. The men were dead before we got there. The building exploded after we left. Any idea who would have done that?”

Ward uncapped the water. “Why would I know?”

“You’re Hydra,” Coulson reminded him. “One of their best. You infiltrated us and fed everything on this bus to them over months. Stabbed everyone here in the back. Surely that sort of information flow goes both way. Who’s the boogie man for Hydra? Who hates you enough to go on murder spree, kill the people but leave the computer data untouched?”

Ward shrugged. “You?”

“Someone other than us, Ward. You know we prefer to do things the other way around.”

“I don’t care, Coulson,” Ward sighed. “I’m not talking. You already know that. Not even Mae can make me talk. So take your questions and go away. I have meatloaf to choke down.”

Coulson’s smile never faltered. “Don’t worry, Ward. I’ll make sure it’s bread and water next time.”

“Thanks,” Ward grunted as Coulson left and the door locked behind him.

###

The meatloaf really was dry, enough that bread and water was almost appealing in contrast. Ward forced himself to eat it anyway. He’d been pretty hungry by the time they got around to bringing him his supper. He’d known they would eventually. They didn’t have the stomach to truly hurt him. Mae did, but she wouldn’t. Her anger at him protected him, ironically enough. If Coulson turned her loose on him, he’d end up dead. So he didn’t and this stalemate of theirs continued. Eventually, he’d find a way to escape it.

The door hushed open again. “Still don’t know about any Hydra boogie men,” he said, looked up, and froze.

A man dressed entirely in black stood in front of the forcefield barrier, his long hair a tangled mess around the mask and muzzle covering his face. His left arm was uncovered, its length a shine of silver metal covered with dry blood. 

Ward went cold. He had only seen the man once, at a distance, but he knew who he was, and he knew what he did. Before he realized it, he found himself on his feet and backed into the corner farthest from the forcefield. 

“I didn’t tell anyone anything,” he promised, even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. The Asset only obeyed the orders of his handler and he never failed to eliminate his target. Still, he had to try. “I’m Agent Grant Ward. I’m loyal to Hydra. I haven’t revealed any information, not a thing. They’ve got nothing from me.”

The Winter Soldier ignored him. He looked at the edges of the forcefield, following the edges of it up and around the room, and walked over to one of the walls. 

“Don’t hurt me!” he shouted. “I know things. I have a huge amount of information. With what I know, the remains of Shield can be utterly gutted.”

The Winter Soldier punched his metal hand into the wall and immediately the forcefield failed. Ward tried to get past him, but the other man was faster. Metal fingers closed around his neck and lifted him bodily up off the ground. Hidden behind his mask, he looked up at the gasping man.

“It’s not Shield I want to gut,” he said.

###

The encryption Skye had broken in order to be able to download the base’s mainframe to the external hard drive paired to her laptop was only the first level of security. Every single file she’d copied was encrypted on its own, using a very sophisticated algorithm that she didn’t have the central code for.

Seated in the main area of the Bus, cross-legged on the couch, Skye grinned at her screen. “Not sophisticated enough,” she told herself, typing madly. “Soon enough and I’ll know every secret you have, you nazi-freaks. Every name, every location, every little hidey-hole you have tucked away.” She hit enter and the screen abruptly went black. “Or maybe not,” she blinked. “Damn it!”

“You have to try again.” The voice was rusty, deep and coarse. Skye turned, and was about to scream at what she saw when a hand clapped over her mouth. 

The masked man behind her put a hand to his covered mouth. “I’m going to let go,” he said. “Scream and I’ll twist your head off. Understand?”

Skye nodded, her eyes wide.

He removed his hand and walked around the back of the couch to stand on the other side of the coffee table, facing her. Skye didn’t scream. She was pretty sure that he wasn’t lying about the head twisting thing. She was suddenly pretty sure about a few more things too.

“You’re the one who killed everyone in that building,” she whispered, her curiousity as always stronger than her fear. “You let us get out before you blew it up. Why?”

His mask and goggles made it impossible to tell what his expression was as he sat across from her, his hands resting on his knees, utterly still. “You’re not my enemies,” he said.

“Uh, how do you know that?” On her laptop, the screen had gone back to the start, ready for her to begin her hack again.

“Your people babble too much. I overheard. I spared you.” He pointed at the laptop and the hard drive. “You can open that?”

She looked at the computer. “You mean hack the files.”

“Hack, yes. Can you hack the files?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “What are you going to do if I do?”

He didn’t move. “Take them. Find Hydra with them. Kill them.”

“And what about us?”

“I only kill Hydra.”

“Good to hear,” Coulson said. Skye jumped and looked up. Coulson was standing at the entrance to the room. Mae was at another entrance, Trip beside her. The man in the mask didn’t react to any of them. 

“How long will it take you to hack the files?” he asked instead, as if no one else was there and pointing weapons at him.

“Uh.” Skye looked at Coulson.

“You’re not giving the orders here!” Coulson snapped. He moved a few steps closer. “Who are you?”

At that, the man tilted his head slightly towards him. “My designation is the Winter Soldier. I am called the Asset.”

“That’s not a name,” Coulson said. Skye swallowed at the tension coming off of him and the others. There was none coming from the Asset. “I want a name.”

“I.” The man hesitated. “He- he called me Bucky.”

“Bucky.” Something unidentifiable crossed Coulson’s face, an expression Skye had never seen on his face before. “Who called you that?”

“Captain America.”

Coulson lowered his gun. “Captain Rogers called you Bucky?” he sounded stunned.

Skye had no idea what he was going on about. It was impossible to tell with Mae, but Trip looked just as stunned. “Bucky? As in Bucky Barnes? Dead seventy years Bucky Barnes? Howling Commando Bucky Barnes?”

The man sighed and reached up, removing first his googles to reveal blank blue eyes and then his mask, exposing an unshaven, very young looking round face. He stood up and turned around and both Coulson and Trip gaped at him.

“You are Bucky,” Coulson whispered. “What- what happened to you?”

Standing as he did with his back to her now, Skye couldn’t see his face. His tone of voice, however, remained utterly flat as he spoke. “I fell. Hydra found me. Made me into a weapon. Now I’m going to destroy them. I need the data in those files. She can give them to me.”

Coulson holstered his weapon. At that sign, Trip holstered his as well, looking more disturbed than he had since they first found out Hydra was in Shield and that Garrett was one of them. Mae kept her gun out and aimed.

“That’s it?” Coulson asked. “You just go off and wipe them out by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, really?” Skye interrupted. “There could be anything on these drives. Hundreds of locations, thousands of Hydra agents, who knows how many super soldiers. Eventually they’ll figure out you’re coming.”

Barnes looked back at her. He still looked young, and tired as well. His was the first name she’d read on Shield’s Wall of Valour, she remembered. “There’s only one super soldier more powerful than I am,” he told her and there was no ego to it. It was just a simple, sad statement of fact. 

“But still? No backup? Nobody to tune the, uh, arm? Nothing?”

He looked back towards Coulson. “I have no backup.”

“You can,” Coulson told him and everyone stared at him. “My team. We have specialists, pilots, people who can provide medical care and upkeep of your arm.”

“Why?” Barnes asked. “Why would you do that?”

“Because we’re Shield,” Coulson told him. “Hydra is our enemy too. Shield was formed on the principle of protecting people. Helping people. That goes back all the way to Steve Rogers’ example. He’d be the first to say that Bucky Barnes belongs at the top of that list. Let us help you.” 

“Seriously?” Skye asked. Barnes looked back at her. “Uh, just let me start this again…” She dropped onto the couch and started typing. Coulson wanted him on the team? That sounded pretty terrifying, but at the same time, there was something about him that was so lost. She knew how that felt.

“I can get in,” she babbled. “It’ll take time. The encryption level here is huge. I can do it, but it’ll take a while. It’d be faster if I had the core command code.”

Barnes looked at her again and rattled off a series of numbers and letters. One eyebrow raised, Skye typed it in and the screen changed. “I’m in! Where did you get this? Why didn’t you just access the files in the building itself?”

“I didn’t have the code before.”

“How do you have it now?” Mae asked.

He turned towards her. “I asked.” 

Something else crossed Coulson’t face. “Ward… Did you kill him?” Skye thought for a second that her heart was about to stop.

Barnes shrugged again. “Only mostly.”

Coulson looked towards Trip. “Send Simmons up to the Cage.” He nodded and ran out. Coulson looked back at Barnes. “The offer still stands. Work with us. We’ll support you.”

“I’m never going to take an order again,” Barnes promised.

“I’m not asking you to.” Coulson walked forward, within reach of the man. “I’m asking you to be part of a team, for a while. As long as you like.”

Barnes hesitated, thinking about Skye didn’t know what. “No,” he said at last. “Not today. Not yet.”

He turned and, faster than she could imagine, he had her laptop and the hard drive in hand and was moving. He went straight for Coulson, who jumped out of the way, and then he was gone. 

“You’re just letting him go?” Mae demanded and moved to follow.

“Yes,” Coulson said to her departing back. “I am.”

“Why?” Skye asked him, already in mourning for her poor laptop. “He doesn’t look exactly stable.”

Coulson smiled at her. “Because everyone should have somewhere they can go and take a rest? Because Captain America would want us to? Because it would really stick it into Hydra’s craw? Maybe he’ll be back. He’s already helped us once when he didn’t have to. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to help him.” He turned and left. 

“Yeah, and maybe get my laptop back too,” she muttered and went to see what he’d done to Grant. She wasn’t really worried, not really.

A moment later, she was running.

###

The Winter Soldier grabbed a parachute in the rear bay of the plane and hit the button to drop the ramp. Wind poured in at him but he didn’t let it affect him as he leaped out, laptop clutched between his knees while he strapped the chute on. He was over forested land, miles from anything, but it didn’t matter. He’d hump his way out soon enough and then he could go over the information at his leisure and plan his next target. 

The offer he’d been given weighed down on him as he drifted towards the ground. It was much the same sort of offer Rogers gave him, but without the extra baggage he wasn’t ready for.

He landed and looked up at the airplane in the distance, marked only by its contrails in the night sky. Perhaps he’d look them up again, he thought. After he’d watched them for a while and made sure they were safe. Then he’d have a team again. 

It was something to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of left open, but I don't know that I'd ever get time to write more in this AU. If anyone wants to take a stab at it, feel free. I don't think I've seen anything online about Bucky Barnes having his arm worked on by Fitzsimmons before. I think he'd be very confused by the experience....
> 
> I also haven't seen any Centipede soldiers turn up in any Captain America fan fiction. Why is that? There are apparently freaking super soldiers everywhere in the MCU.
> 
> BTW, Melinda May is awesome. So is Trip. Grant Ward is still a douchebag.


End file.
